


we share the same cold meal

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The queen, bitter, and the red-handed knights who wait in the wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we share the same cold meal

She towers over them so much that it’s simple, forgetting that she’s very small. 

“Whatever it is you’ve come to do, do it, and get out.” 

She’ll tower again years later, when she watches Charlie get hauled off by the police - when she’s just a glimpse of a dated dress and flinty eyes in a crowd that hates him.

She takes care of them, now, but she learned just as they did - it never meant love. 

“Carolyn—” 

She turns on Meyer the minute he opens his mouth, though he isn’t the one to flinch. 

“You,” Carolyn breathes, all of that silent sort of rage that dulls the voice and hides between the mouth and lungs. “Be quiet.” 

Her husband is dying. He won’t make the night. She’s been sent home because the haggard rings around her eyes won’t save him, and she left him  _months_ ago. 

But here, overlooking the park, with her jade statues on the mantle and the city sprawled under her polished shoes, it’s all still hers. 

For tonight, at least.

“I’ve already taken your names out of his books.” She tells them, pushing a leather bound folder into Meyer’s hands. “This needs to be disposed of.” 

She won’t give them the keys, so she waits outside until they clear the office, pocketing papers to burn - and Charlie takes more than he should, always does, because there’s that ugly streak he’s got that marked the Bankroll his a long time ago. It’s why he’s the one to loom over Rothstein’s bedside later that night in the suit he wouldn’t have been able to afford without her help - while Meyer goes home to the woman he’ll marry soon enough, and he tries to forget his father.

She’d rip them open if she wanted to - but it’s crueler, leaving them to time and their own. 

It’s only as they’re leaving that she does lash out, just once, grabbing Charlie’s wrist to take the ring off of his finger. 

“…What’s that for?” He hurts, hates maybe, but he’d still never raise his hand to her.

She looks at him with a vice grip on his arm, and an echo of her husband’s smile. 

“Collateral, Charlie.” 

After all, they’ll take the rest.


End file.
